It was a real honor for the Louvre to be open for one person. Upon entering the Louvre, Xia Lei felt as if his life was but a dream in the vast yet silent big hall. He couldn’t help but think, ‘If he didn’t have his current success, but was just a poor boy doing hard labor, would the world-famous Louvre open up just for him? Would the French young woman Jacqueline Eva try to fawn over him?
Of course not.
The world was always realistic. Having things just fall into your lap would never happen.
“Le Louvre was built in 1204. It was originally the French imperial palace, and 50 French kings and queens have lived here. It was the most precious building in the French art revival and its rich classical drawings and carvings are world-famous. Le Louvre hosts three treasures of the world: the Venus sculpture, the Mona Lisa oil painting, and the Victory Goddess stone carving, with more than forty thousand art items, including statues, drawings, arts and crafts, ancient Oriental, ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek and Roman and six other categories.” Jacqueline Eva really did serve as Xia Lei’s tour guide, and she spoke very quickly.
Xia Lei had already read about what she was saying on Baidu, but he still feigned interest. “I’ve already admired the Mona Lisa for so long. Where is it?”
“Mr. Xia, before I let you take a look at the Mona Lisa, can you tell me why you’re so interested in it?” Jacqueline Eva looked at Xia Lei with a special expression.
She had already asked this question twice, with one time being in the car. She was still probing.
“If I say it, don’t laugh.” Xia Lei chuckled.
“How could that be?”
“Then all right. I’ll tell you. I’m planning on buying the Mona Lisa. Are you guys selling it?”
“You really are…” Jacqueline Eva couldn’t continue.
The Mona Lisa was practically a rare and valuable treasure within the gems at the Louvre. It had a supreme worth, and to the French, it was also a symbolic artistic treasure. The insurance market had placed a value of fifteen hundred million pound sterlings on it, but if someone really did give them fifteen hundred million pound sterlings, would the French government really sell it? Of course not. Actually its value couldn’t be approximated with money anymore.
Xia Lei shrugged. “Forget it. Pretend I never said that. Just let me take a look. I can’t wait to see it.”
“All right, please come with me. It’s in the exhibition hall on the second floor.” Jacqueline Eva led Xia Lei over to the staircase.
The ancient staircase was somewhat precipitous. Jacqueline Eva first went up two steps, and when Xia Lei followed, he happened to be just under her butt. With one on top and one on the bottom, he didn’t even need to stoop before he could peep at the perky butt underneath the short skirt and into her rose-colored mesh. As the faint sexy scenery appeared before him, a strange question suddenly appeared in his head. Was good ventilation actually that important?
Jacqueline Eva turned and glanced at Xia Lei with a faint smile on her lips. She clearly knew where Xia Lei was looking but her expression didn’t show any disgust. She only looked at Xia Lei and then turned back. As they walked, she asked, “Mr. Xia, are you really the vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Science?”
“Yes, I used to be just a scholar but they promoted me recently.” Xia Lei casually added, “But that’s just an inflated position, I don’t really care about it.”
“That isn’t an inflated position. With your success, you’re completely fit for that position. If you were to come to France, we would give you more honor.”
“Are you telling me to immigrate to France?” Xia Lei laughed.
“France would match up to your talent. The women in France are the most romantic women in the world. I’ll bet that if you were to become French, you’d definitely become the love target that they’d fight over. You’d also make Paris more romantic, don’t you think?”
“I’m Chinese. I can only be Chinese in my lifetime. While France is good, it’s not my home.”
“What a pity.”
As they chatted, Jacqueline Eva brought Xia Lei to an exhibition hall on the second floor.
Xia Lei saw the Mona Lisa at one glance, and in that moment, he seemed to have experienced a magical attraction as he walked over, unable to help himself.
The woman in the painting was smiling, and she was dignified and pretty. The University of Amsterdam had previously analyzed her smile with an emotional software. Her smile was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% frightened and 2% angry. Some people had even discovered that a lion, a monkey, a water buffalo and a crocodile were hiding on her shoulder. Some people had even said that she had just experienced an orgasm so that’s why she was smiling so sweetly…
All of these things that could be seen online appeared in front of him. Xia Lei couldn’t help but think of “Dream of the Red Chamber” in which some “Redologists” studied “Dream of the Red Chamber” extremely thoroughly. They knew how many restrooms were in the Grand View Garden and where those bathrooms were located. They even knew when Wang Baochuan got her period, but what was the point in all that?
“Mr. Xia, this is the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s family heirloom and France’s national treasure,” introduced Jacqueline to Xia Lei.
Xia Lei knew that Da Vinci was Italian so this painting was Italy’s. The majority of the several hundred thousand treasures in the Louvre had all been plundered from other countries. Among them, there were many Chinese treasures. In reality, this equated to the “selfie” system of values in the West. In short, this meant ‘I can do whatever I want, but other people can’t do the same thing.’
However, Xia Lei didn’t want to refute Jacqueline Eva’s words. The Mona Lisa belonged to Italy and not France, but this wasn’t important to him. What he really cared about were the secrets within the Mona Lisa.
His gaze fell onto the woman’s eyes. He roused his left eye’s x-ray abilities. The woman’s eyes in the painting were immediately magnified and every detail appeared extremely clearly. At the same time, his brain went into an extraordinary state in which everything his left eye saw emerged in his brain and was then remade in another manner.
The woman’s eyes were really hiding letters, but they weren’t L or D, as the outside world claimed, with L and D being the abbreviated form of Leonardo Da Vinci’s name. Instead, it was an A and E. He was very certain about this even though the two letters still seemed like a C or B to him.
His conclusion hadn’t been based on guesses or unclear judgements, but established on solid evidence. This oil painting had several hundred years of history. Air, light, and human actions had created damage. Even the paint that Da Vinci used had a limited life span, and his paint was clearly past its prime. Many changes had been added later.
It was just like the wrinkles on an old person’s face; when old people were young, they never had wrinkles. Current scientific instruments didn’t have a way to see which changes had already existed back then, or which changes had occurred later, but his eyes and brain could tell these changes apart. After his brain peeled back the acquired changes, he saw the original work from several hundred years ago. In other words, his brain projected what Da Vinci had originally drawn. In his brain, there were hidden letters in the woman’s eyes that were clearly A and E!
Why would Da Vinci paint these two letters into this woman’s eyes?
If the Mona Lisa was the only painting that had clues regarding AE, then this could have been a coincidence, but Xia Lei knew that Da Vinci had drawn another painting that had to do with AE and the ancient alloy, or the painting from Mark Armin’s house of the female pirate. Even though the letters AE hadn’t shown up in that painting, the ancient alloy and Princess Yongmei’s face had appeared.
Now, looking at the Mona Lisa, Xia Lei’s heart was sure that Da Vinci had something to do with the ancient alloy and AE. The woman in the painting had the letters, AE, drawn into her eyes. This was clearly a hint!
‘Da Vinci was praised as the smartest person in the world. He led in the fields of art and architecture, and he was extraordinarily skilled at scientific research. He was practically an all-rounder. Could it be that he also took AE capsules? Could it be that he walked the same path I’m walking now?’ Xia Lei’s head was filled with these types of questions, and these thoughts shocked even himself.
Da Vinci’s life was filled with legendary colors. He had gained so much success that the entire world focused on. If he was just someone with a normal IQ and was a normal person, then no matter how hard he worked, he never would have been able to reach that level.
Xia Lei thought of himself again. If it wasn’t for the AE capsules, he would have never been able to get the amount of success he had received today. If not for the AE capsules, he probably would have still been doing physical labor and doing arc welding, living like a dog at the lowest rung of society.
‘If Da Vinci also took AE capsules, then let’s suppose that he tried to decipher AE and the ancient alloy’s secrets. Where would he leave his clues?’ Xia Lei’s became very active.
Jacqueline got closer to Xia Lei. “Mr. Xia, frankly it’s just an oil painting. A lot of people have praised it unceasingly but I think it’s just an oil painting.”
Xia Lei laughed. “You’re actually afraid I’ll buy it? Don’t worry, it costs fifteen hundred million pound sterlings, almost as much as my entire household. I wouldn’t use all my money to buy an oil painting. Even if I wanted it, I would put it into our business deal. This would be the smartest way, don’t you think?”
“You…” Jacqueline Eva looked at Xia Lei, dumbstruck. If Xia Lei actually added Mona Lisa to the business deal, then this would really become a difficult problem for the French government.
Xia Lei’s gaze went back to the oil painting.
Jacqueline Eva didn’t speak anymore. She stood next to Xia Lei, quietly looking at the Mona Lisa that was shrouded in light. She didn’t know why but she had begun worrying that this would be her last time to see it.
Xia Lei’s left eye slightly twitched and entered x-ray mode. The layers of paint on the oil painting disappeared one by one. Xia Lei’s brain had also filled with a colorful world of purple, black, red, white, orange…
